


Facets

by lara_s



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:56:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lara_s/pseuds/lara_s
Summary: A collection of various, slightly AU in some cases, short scenes reflecting different characters and their relationship to Kira.





	1. Shakaar

The cell is celebrating tonight. It’s safe enough out here in the hills for the night that Shakaar allows the debauchery to take place. They need this, to let it out. To forget who and what they are and be ‘normal’ for however briefly. He understands that. Hell, there was a time he would have been the first one to get the party started. But someone should stand watch just in case and Edon doesn’t mind. The safety of the cell is his responsibility after all and, in any event, he can’t say he’s really feeling the excitement of the others. 

I’m getting old and jaded, he thinks as he settles in at the mouth of the cave, automatically scanning the horizon for any signs of Cardassian pursuit. Nothing. 

They have good reason to celebrate. The Prophets were looking over them today. The raid was a success. For once, everything went according to plan. The Cardassian munitions facility is now a smoking ruin and they even managed to pull it off without a single Bajoran casualty. Doesn't get much better than that. 

A burst of raunchy laughter comes from the group huddled around the campfire and Shakaar’s eyes land on the new recruit. The kid. By all accounts she handled her first mission with aplomb. She's smart and brave and has the fire burning deep within her veins. With more experience under her belt she has all the markings of becoming an excellent asset to the resistance. Assuming she stays alive long enough that is. 

Her cheeks are flushed, drunk on Furrell’s stash of stolen liquor and post-raid exhilaration. She giggles, snorting loudly at Jaron’s wildly exaggerated commentary about how things went down before setting him straight and then vowing to one up him on the next raid. She probably will too. 

She’s one of them now, truly. In more ways than one. Underneath the bravado, Shakaar knows all too well the bone chilling coldness that creeps over one's pagh from living this kind of life. The kid doesn't know it and he's not going to bring it up, but on the trek back to the caves he didn't miss the minute she had to take to collect herself. He noticed her throwing up a meager breakfast in the bushes and the violent shudder racking her small frame at the realization she'd killed for the first time. He also didn’t miss the steely glint of determination in her eyes. Shakaar knows she considers her soul a price worth paying for freedom, but he also knows it's something that will eat at her forever. 

Across the cave, the girl catches the cell leader’s gaze upon her. She doesn’t look away. Instead she stares back at him fiercely, defiant, daring him to comment in some way that she doesn’t belong. He nods and smiles, granting her his approval and she relaxes turning back to the conversation. 

Edon lets out a sigh and lights a cigarette. He watches over his band of ragtag resistance members long into the night, absentmindedly daydreaming about how things could have been had the Cardassians never showed up. Another reality where he’s nothing more than a simple farmer and a thirteen year old child with messy long red hair is happy and carefree instead of stained with blood and death. It’s a pleasant, if utterly unrealistic, fantasy.


	2. Benjamin

“Have you ever worked with a Bajoran woman before Commander?” There's a thinly veiled hint of amusement in the engineer's voice that catches Sisko’s attention. 

“No….” Benjamin knows nothing of Bajor or its people and doesn't want to. He didn't bother to read the briefings. He has no intention of actually taking this assignment, intends to be gone as quickly as he arrived. 

What's so special about Bajoran women anyway? He raises an eyebrow in question, intrigued despite himself. 

The Chief outright chuckles as they enter the command center of this Cardassian hell hole that’s now home. “You’ll find out soon enough. Over there.” Through the general cacophony and chaos around them, a sharp female voice can be heard through the racket. Whoever she is, she's ripping some poor studdering soul a new one before cutting the comlink and slamming her fist on the desk. Then she notices she has company. Whirling around she glares at him. The glare only deepens as he introduces himself. A withering “I suppose you’re here for the office,” is his only response. For the first time since stepping foot on the station, for the first time in a long while actually, a smile breaks across Ben Sisko’s face. 

He watches his new first officer carefully during those early days. Back when she's a live wire ready to go off at a moment's notice and he's not at all certain he, or anyone else for that matter, will survive the resulting explosion if she does. But even then, before The Sisko fulfills his destiny, before the wisdom of the Prophets flows through his very being, he realizes the exact moment when everything changes between them. It's the day he collects her from Jericho. The day he first sees a wealth of unspilled tears brewing in the eyes of this stubborn, haunted, conflicted woman who is, without a doubt, the strongest and most courageous person he has ever met. 

It breaks his heart. He wants nothing more than for her, and the others like her, to find some measure of peace despite the horrors of a past he can only vaguely comprehend. From then on, although they may still argue heatedly over the particulars of how to make it happen, Ben Sisko shares Kira Nerys’ hope of a healed and unified Bajor. And just like her, he's willing to devote everything he is to make it happen.


	3. Bariel

He sees her for the first time when he's a young boy around the age of seven. Just another war orphan left in the care of the monks at the Kendra shrine. Brought before the abbot, the cagey old man read Antos’ pagh, smiled knowingly and promptly plopped him in front of an orb. Barial Antos sees many things that day and in the days that follow, much of which he doesn’t understand, but when he sees the hazy features of a woman in red he knows with absolute certainty that she is a part of his destiny. 

It’s not until many years later, shortly after the withdrawal in fact, that he finally discovers exactly who she is. Nearly chokes on a bite of his morning hasparat when he picks up a padd and notices a picture of her likeness staring back at him from the news report. Kira Nerys. A former resistance fighter, now the Bajoran liaison to Starfleet on the old Cardassian space station. 

She has a reputation for being a hell raiser. He has never been much for convention himself. They will make an interesting pair.

It’s going to be a difficult road to walk, he knows. But she will lend him the strength necessary to do the work of the Prophets in his in his final days. And he… He will set her on the path towards healing from the dark days of the Occupation. Will set her heart free even as he breaks it. Their time together will be brief but they will be good for each other. 

Vedek Barial shuts the doors of the orb. He has learned patience. He will meet the woman of his visions soon enough and everything will be as the Prophets will it to be.


	4. Miles

Miles O’Brian has always liked the prickly Major. Appreciated her complete lack of pretense and straightforward approach to life. Kira’s sharpness and exacting standards have never bothered him. He respects her and has from the start. You see, Miles has fought the Cardassians, been held, albit briefly, in one of their prison camps. He’d never presume to compare his experience to what she and the rest of the Bajoran people have lived through, but of all the Starfleet crew here he’d like to think he understands better than most. 

They exist for years as nothing more than professional colleagues. He can count on one hand the number of conversations he’s had with Kira outside of duty that didn't involve work in one way or the other. Friendly sure, but not exactly friends. She holds herself apart. He isn’t sure she even allows herself to have friends other than the occasional hardfaced Bajoran who comes from the surface to visit her. Then again, Dax seems to have appointed herself with the title and Miles is quite certain he’s noticed the Major let her guard down around Odo on more than one occasion. 

Then with a single utterly unselfish and spontaneous gesture, she’s pregnant with his son. He starts to learn things about her. Little intimate things that come from living with someone like how she looks in the morning before that first cup of raktichino and how she doesn’t sleep very well or for very long because most nights she still has nightmares. 

It’s awkward. They squabble. He thinks he has every right to tell her what she should be eating. To check up on her and make sure she’s taking her vitamins. She’s just as sure that it’s none of his damn business. Tempers flare and dull with Keiko playing peacemaker. 

Then he comes home one day and finds the terror of the station and scourge of diplomates throughout the quadrant crouched on the floor of his quarters playing a silly game with Molly. Kira gives him a wry grin as he walks in, as if she’s mildly embarrassed at being caught and can’t quite believe what she’s doing. “She’s not bothering you?” Miles mouths over his daughter’s head. “No,” Kira says back so softly he barely hears it. “I never had a childhood. I’m actually enjoying this.” 

In another life...

It's a fleeting thought they both quickly and resolutely put behind them for a multitude of reasons, but Miles never does completely forget that he could have come to love this woman. Even once the O’Brians are back on Earth, all it takes is for Kirayoshi to square his shoulders in a certain manner so much like his birth mother or the way the boy is drawn to Bajoran spirituality and Miles remembers.


	5. Damar

Damar finishes his drink, winces and slams the empty glass down on the counter with a bang.

“Bitch,” he mutters. Other than idle curiosity as to what Dukat ever saw in the woman, Damar had never really thought much about Kira Nerys before. But now, he thinks about her every time his poorly healed collarbone aches which is far too frequently for his tastes. He takes another shot to chase away the lingering embarrassment of having been tricked and then laid flat by a Bajoran half his size. Muddled drunken thoughts filled with imagining various ways he might kill her and get away with it. She is loud mouthed, undignified, insufferable, and, worst of all, the very embodiment of everything that went wrong for Cardassia on Bajor. Damar hates her and everything she represents. 

But that was before they were trapped in a cellar and forced to plot a revolution together. Before everything changed. 

Yeah Damar, what kind of people give orders like that?

Kira unapologetically forces him to examine uncomfortable truths, ruthlessly expects more from him than he ever thought himself capable of. Ironies of ironies, she makes him want to be a better man, not just for himself but for Cardassia. 

She'd get a good laugh out of that if he ever told her as much, which he won't. 

In the dark of the basement, he risks a sideways glance at her from across the room. Slumped over on her cot, asleep or doing a good job of pretending to be. Dreaming of her dying shapeshifter perhaps. When Damar finally falls asleep, he dreams of absolution for his many sins in deep brown eyes.


	6. Ezri

Ezri knows seeking out Benjamin Sisko is a mistake, following him to Deep Space Nine an even greater one. There are rules against such reassociation with a past host’s life after all. She can feel Curzon’s disdain at that particular thought. Mostly though all she can feel is Jadzia’s overwhelming shock and grief at her unexpectedly tragic end. Her burning desire for closure. The others agree. Ezri, who isn’t prepared for this at all, has little choice but to go along for the ride.

If Kira Nerys had seemed larger than life from Jadzia’s memories, well, reality was even more so. The Colonel is everything Ezri wishes she could be. Accomplished. Self assured. Ezri’s downright tongue tied around the woman with no small amount of hero worship and utterly intimidated. When Bashir notices he whispers, “hey, at least she’s mellowed over the years and at least you didn’t insult her entire race at first meeting like I did. If she didn’t kill me, you’ll be fine.” Jadzia’s ringing laughter lasts for hours.

Maybe it’s not surprising that of all the people on the station, it’s Kira who’s the first to reach out. Kira who seems to understand and doesn’t expect her to be Jadzia. Kira who awkwardly sits across from Ezri in Quarks bar and straightforwardly blurts out, “Look, I admit I don’t know how to deal with this. It’s weird. You know so much about me and I know nothing about you. Can we change that? I’d like for us to be friends.”

A year later, the Colonel doesn’t ask for any help putting herself back together after her final trip to the Gamma Quadrant though it’s obvious she’s devastated. Doesn’t talk about Odo then or later. But Ezri is there for her with a squeeze of the hand and a smile and they both know life will go on.

Dax who will survive for many more generations to come will never forget the strength and inspiration of Kira Nerys.


	7. Odo

The Link is paradise. His birthright. It surrounds him. Engulfs him. His very cells recognize the righteousness of this state of being. But even so, he is not content. The Link, for all that it is, simply cannot compare to the sound of her laughter, the feel of her skin or the sparkle of her eyes. 

Odo Ital knows what it is like to have one’s deepest desire come true. He thanks the Prophets he never thought he believed in for such every day. Now he dreams about the moment he'll be reunited with the woman who is his everything. He will complete his duty, he could do no less, but he has no intention of remaining here any longer than he must. 

The Link shies away from his thoughts of Kira, uncomprehending and wary, but Odo doesn’t care. In fact, he makes damn sure the entire living sea of changelings feel the whole host of messy humanoid emotions that rip through him. He doesn't hold back. He wants them to know everything; how he loves her so very much and every ounce of pain and longing their separation causes him. 

If they find it difficult, well serves them right, he thinks rather viciously. But he knows it won't be long now. His emotions are theirs. If he keeps it up, the Link will come to miss Nerys as much as he does. Soon the Link will understand and once they do his job here will be done and he’ll be able to go back to where he belongs.


End file.
